"3 STRANGE MEN"

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 October 1940, Page 10

"3 STRANGE MEN"

COPYRIGHT. PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

By

C. T. PODMORE.

(Author of “The Fault,” etc.

CHAPTER XXIV. (Continued *- The problem about it that interested George Parmitter and his fiancee was its actual worth, sentimental and otheiwise, to themselves. George knew that his father had wished him to make the cottage his home someday, but differences had gradually cancelled that. It was not, in any case, the kind of home in which he and his future wife would care to bury themselves; especially after what had happened under its roof. Yet the appeal of the place must be returned to normal. How was that to be done? “These things,” was Mrs Cordery’s studied view, “can be lived down. They always are.” But she would not care to have herself to live down this particularly sensation. “Personally,” George said, “I could live down anything, but it would depend a good deal upon where.” “Better take advice,” was Sophie’s suggestion. “Yes—l’ll take yours, Sophie. Where would you like to live? I mean with me, of course. You will have to decide before long." “ 'Before long.’ ” she smiled, “does ‘

allow a little time for thought.” Meanwhile, it was at the elder lady’s suggestion that they went down to Tooting, as evening fell, to see what sort of impression might be got of the place, invested as it was with its full measure of sinister association. Not only that; the lace attracted, somehow; and it might be that the übiquitous Press would not seek them there at such an hour. News-hounds had been at their heels for even the scrappiest of remarks.

No one was about but a constable, nearing the end of his spell of duty. Things, he said, had been a bit of a show, but the show was over for tonight, most likely. Pretty dismal for the night man round here. He’d had some. Dismal for anybody, he thought. “I wonder,” Sophie remarked, as they were looking over the back garden a minute after, “if the constable was giving you advice.” George laughed. “But, you see, we have already got the garden turned over. And for nothing. That’s something.”

“I do hope, George, it is for nothing,” she whispered. “Oh yes—the garden,"he said, but did not laugh this time. Mrs Cordery agreed with the police man; and she hated the look of me cellar. It was like a one-eyed shadow of something. Why, she wondered, had not the front garden been dug up too? Whereupon came George’s explanation. The last diagram on his chart corresponded equally to the shape of the back garden and the cellar floor, the path in the one being indicated in the same position as the staircase cavity in the other. It looked simple now, even with the rough drawing of a boot in the middle of it, which might be taken —as evidently it had been taken —to mean a "foot" down. But' only a slow and reasoned convergence upon this point could have identified it. “Well,” Mrs Cordery said, 'if there was anything between my Steve and your father to bring about a thing like this, it’s had a bad ending; and the sooner it’s forgotten, the better.” 'Let us agree to forget it,” Sophie said.

“Not,” George said, “until we know it absolutely hopeless to do otherwise. Besides, Sophie, you’re so fond of jewels.” “Dear me,” commented Mrs Cordery. “wouldn’t she be satisfied if she got those pearls and the emerald? I should —if I had to be. I thought it was likely that whatever happens to Price and Torkney, they are sure to have put the ill-omened stuff beyond recovery save by themselves, if it’s years from now. Reed can't give them away, if he’s dead."

Daylight was perhaps a more agreeable time for something which George Parmitter had in mind, since the house was under deoate as to its future. But he had no doubt that neither Sophie nor her mother, being in his company, would be too squeamish about spending a little time inside. And, of course, the constable was still lounging about the front gate; and the solid law was something to conjure with, against the onset of immaterial fancies.

He had no intention of ever living in this place. Neither had Sophie. A touch of humorous pretence lightened the weight of things. But while the}' were here, probably for their last visit in company, there were certain things he wished to select for the remembrance of his father; and Sophie should see them, understand his wishes, and accept them into the scheme of her own ideas, which were to be happily realised elsewhere

So they went within, and lit up the rooms, and the house looked as bright to the eye of the policeman outside as a new home, instead of the forsaken derelict it was to oe.

Whoever of the curious may have seen the light from a distance held back as from a warning beacon, but there were one or two who approached with a different concern. One arrived at the gate, briskly enough, as the constable stretched his tall figure lazily upright, prior to stepping from the scene with a few words and a “Good night." This was when Hardy bustled in upon the visitors. "Nothing startling round this quarter, I suppose?" was his greeting. "What more startling should there be?” Parmitter asked. "Oh, there"!! be something." rejoined Hardy, “I feel pretty sure. The affair is splashed all over the country, and the papers will keep the news hot while it lasts. I have just seen Jowle's wife. She is out about the streets somewhere. Rumours of his suicide don’t interest me. But I can’t think where he has been hiding, and why he don’t come out.” “Probably he hasn't seen his evening paper yet," George sugested, grimly

facetious for the moment. Hardy saw in their faces the unspoken desire for news. "Reed chose a quick way out of it, didn’t he?” he commented. “And yet he must have known he had a chance, and a good one, of escaping the murder charge. Torkney and Diggs—l mean Price, of course—say nothing, and not likely. What I believe is that Reed’s idea was to have your father place the loose gems in their safe keeping—insisted on it, in fact —and your father possibly lost his head and drew on him. Or, if your father was not quite compos mentis, as I don’t suppose he was, that grip on the barrel might have been an attempt to prevent him from suicide. It’s rhe robbery put the black look on it. You, I know, are sure your father had no idea of suicide. Well, then, even if it was made to look otherwise, he had to be prevented from ever knowing who it was that had got the charts —if that affair is to be accepted as real. However, Reed can't answer now, he’s gone. His finger prints were on the bit of paper I got from your friend Barling. Price’s are there, too i . . . my eye. what an undertaker! . . ■ Reed’s were also on that note to MarkI ham, but not on the letter to you, though the typing and the paper are I from the same source. Apart from this I have inquired into their fraudulent ' acquisition of the buried stuff, since I you insist that it was actually to be | found.”

Mrs Cordery glanced at George. “'Found? Of course it was to be found. There’s never been a doubt about it. My husband—Steve Cordery —But never mind. We have been deciding to let it go.” "No, no,” George contradicted; "not in face of the chance that we need do nothing of the sort.” "If it involved the same doubt and trouble and calamity all over again,” Hardy said, “I should feel inclined to agree with the lady. But I may as well tell you that Price and Torkney flatly deny possession of it. So I still reserve my belief.” “Naturally Price aid Torkney would deny it,” George said. “They say it was not found here.” “According to George,” Mrs Cordery insisted, “it could be found nowhere else.”

"Nevertheless,” Hardy shrugged, “I am rather disposed to believe them. 1 have a good idea when a man is lying.” “That would imply a further search,’ Parmitter remarked. “That’s your affair,” Hardy rejoined. “There- may be no treasure at all, in spite of what you say; and a grim joke, to. Anyhow, it won’t come through Price and Torkney. I’m not staying— I must look round a bit more—there’ll be another man here shortly.” He got up and moved toward the door, but changed his mind and decided to go by the back instead. "Your ruined garden sticks in one’s mind,” he added. “I wonder, now. if by any chance a single spot of it may not have been quite turned over. Think so?” “No chance.” “I’m afraid you're right.” George proceeded to let the detective out the way he had a fancy to go. From the opened doorway, however, Hardy suddenly stepped back with an ejaculation. Somebody stood facing him on the step, someone who seemed startled, and then said, in a mild voice, “I was just going to knock.” Come in, ’ said Hardy, sharply reaching for him. He half dragged into the light a man who came with him quite passively. George Parmitter, behind them, closed the door. “Jowle!” The countenance of his father’s man had sunk and become ashen since George last saw him. and a growth of black hair about it went some way toward obscuring his identity. He had a fixed look as if from too much thought. His eyes gave the impression that they might be startled at any moment into a furtive move of fear. He stood and I gazed from one to another, and a faint, almost pitiful, smile flicked over his features, but was gone the next moment. “You know you’re cleared, Jowle. don’t you?” Hardy said. "Yes- —now.” was the answer. “Well? Rouse up. What are you going to say? What have you come here for? Been home yet?” George placed a chair for the man. Slowly shaking his head, Jowle sat down.

"I ve been here before, more than once," he said then. “I’ve come this time because I've managed to overhear something out yonder, and I know it doesn’t matter any more, not in the same way. You’d have done the same yourself. What did it look like, up against me? I thought, if I could only get it back, it wouldn't look so bad. I could see nothing else to do. . I had to get it back.” “Now what is it you’re referring to, Jowle? Just begin at the beginning, will you?” Hardy's voice was soothing and sympathetic, for the man’s ordeal lay heavy on him. (To be Continued).